


Shopping for Skutters

by SpacePenguin11



Series: Sam and Rimmer [3]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-06-02 21:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19450255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpacePenguin11/pseuds/SpacePenguin11
Summary: A shopping mall derelict brings along a suprise or two, and Rimmer tries his best to be less protective over Sam.





	1. Chapter 1

Dave Lister knocked on the door of Sam and Rimmer’s bedroom.

“Come in,” came the tiny voice from inside the room.

He entered, and found Sam huddled up under the covers in the bed with a look of pure terror on her face.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said in a thankful tone.

“Why, what’s going on?”

She pointed to the corner of the room.

Lister followed her finger and then, when his eyes set upon what she was pointing at, he yelped and jumped in the bed next to her.

“What are you doing?!”

“I’m not going anywhere near that bleedin thing Sam!”

“You have to Dave! What if it moves?!”

“If it moves we’ll never find it!” he said, feeling his heart begin to palpitate.

“I know, and you know how aggressive they are? If it sees us it’s gonna charge right at us!”

Just then Rimmer appeared in the doorway, and, seeing the two of them in such close quarters with each other, said with some asperity.

“What the bloody hell is going on in here!?”

“Shhh Rimmer, don’t startle it! If you do it will move!”

“What will move?!” replied Rimmer, making no effort whatsoever to lower his voice.

The two of them pointed over to the corner.

Rimmer turned his attention to the apparent source of their terror.

“It’s a spider,” he said, frowning at the two of them.

They nodded.

“Ok, so I’m already fully aware of Sam’s phobia, but let me get this next part straight. David Lister, one of the bravest men I know when it comes to obliterating space monsters, is afraid of THAT?”

He pointed at the creature in question.

“And more to the point, how have I never known this about you?!”

“Well you don’t exactly get many of the smeggers in deep space do you Rimmer?! Now please can you just get rid of it before it charges at us!”

The hologram pursed his lips.

“You know they’re much more afraid of you than you are of them!”

“Arnold!!!” said Sam angrily.

“Alright! But you, Dave Lister, are not allowed to refer to me as a coward for the next six months at least!”

“Ok Rimmer whatever, just get rid of it!”

“Make sure you kill it!” said Sam, as the hologram squatted down and gently scooped the critter up in his hands.

“It might be pregnant!” he protested.

“Even more reason to kill it!” said Lister,  
“Before it starts layin its eggs all over the place!”

“What are you going to do with it?” asked Sam warily.

“Well I suppose I’ll be flushing it out of the airlock, seems unnecessarily cruel to me,” he muttered as he went off down the corridor.

Later on that morning, Rimmer discovered Sam turning the bedroom upside down in what he assumed was a ‘spider hunt,’ and, as mean as it was, he just couldn’t help himself.

He was capable of making very little noise when he wanted to, and so it was easy to creep into the room and right up behind her.

“Boo!” he shouted, straight over her shoulder and into her ear.

“For god’s sake Arnold! Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack!”

“I’m not Arnold,” he said tauntingly, tickling the back of her neck.  
“I’m a giant super spider from the planet Arachnos!”

“That’s not funny Arnold!”

“It’s a little bit funny,” he chuckled.  
“And I don’t understand why do you didn’t believe me when I told you I was going to flush it out of the airlock. Is our relationship developing trust issues?”

“I’m just checking that it didn't have any friends with it.”

“I doubt very much that it did. As Lister said earlier, I think that’s possibly the first spider I’ve seen on this ship.  
Anyway come on, Holly wants to see us in the drive room.”

The other three crew members were already there when they arrived at the designated meeting place.

“Come on then Holly get on with it,” said Rimmer, in the usual tone of annoyance that he reserved for the ships computer.

“Alright alright, keep your hair on! I just thought you might all like to know that there’s a derelict not too far from us.”

“Oh yes!” Lister rubbed his hands together.

“This better be an interesting one!” complained Cat, who was in the process of adding finishing touches to his hairstyle.

“The last one we stopped off at smelt like the monkeys socks, and there was nothing on there but a load of engine parts!”

“Yeah, Rimmer was in his element.”

“I was indeed Listy,” replied the hologram, smiling broadly.

Sam smiled too, she could clearly remember the look of excitement on her lover’s face the day he had brought all that junk back to the ship. 

“And I broke my damn ankle!” said Cat, but he got no reply.

“Can you tell what will be on it Holly?” Sam asked eagerly.

“No clue Sam, guess you’ll find out when you get there.”

“Ohhhh!” she squealed in anticipation.

“Look about that Sam... I’ve changed my mind,” said Rimmer quietly.

“What do you mean you’ve changed your mind?” she asked gingerly.

“I don’t think you’re ready to leave the ship yet.”

There was a heated pause.

“Please tell me this is a joke?!”

“It’s not a joke Sam, I think it’s best if you stay here,” he said, focusing his attention on the console he was currently leaning on, almost as if making eye contact with her would be too uncomfortable for him at the present moment.

“Arnold please don’t do this,” she couldn’t hide the rising emotion in her voice

“I know that you don't see it right now, but I’m only doing this to keep you safe”

“Arnold you told me that I could come with you on the next derelict that we came across.”

“I know,” he said,  
“And I’m sorry,” he turned to face her,  
“But I just don’t think you’re ready yet.”

“But you promised,” she said pitifully.

“Look Sam, let me explain. Exploring derelicts can get very...

“Samantha! Do not walk away from me when I’m talking to you!”

But she had left the room, leaving Rimmer growling in frustration.

The others exchanged awkward glances, unsure as to what to say or do.

Kryten took one for the team,

“Mr Rimmer sir, perhaps...”

“Don’t say a word Kryten!” he warned,  
“Not one smegging word!” 

And he left, heading off in Sam’s direction.

Not long after that, the remaining occupants of the room could hear the disagreement trailing off down the corridor.

“What in Silicone heaven was that?”

“That’s what we refer to as trouble in paradise, Kryten,” replied Lister.

“Sam,” said Rimmer calmly, following her into their bedroom.  
“It won’t be so bad staying here. There’s a ton of video games, you like your video games! I see you playing them with Lister and the cat all the time!”

“Arnold I’ve been cooped up on this ship ever since we left Jupiter. I’m going stir crazy!”

“I promised I’d protect you Sam, and that’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said, sitting her down on the bed.

“You’re not protecting me Arnold! You’re suffocating me! I need to learn how to do the stuff that you guys do! How can I do it if you won’t give me the freedom to?”

“It’s too dangerous Sam!”

“You guys can watch over me! I’ll be good, I promise! I won’t go wandering off! I’ll do exactly what you tell me to do!”

She seemed more beautiful than ever to him today. She was dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a fluffy pink jumper, her long blonde wavy hair tied up in a ponytail. Her gorgeous blue eyes just as enchanting as ever.  
She was far too precious to him.  
She needed to be kept safe.

“The answer’s no Sam,” he said firmly.

She turned away from him for a moment, and he could see that she was struggling to hold back tears.

It slowly dawned on him that she was having one of her ‘fragile’ days. She’d been on the ship for a few months now, which had given him more than enough time to get to grips with her mood changes.  
He suspected these days were related to the numerous traumas that she had been through, and there was only really one remedy that worked.

“Come here,” he said gently.

“I dont want a hug,” she said rigidly.

That surprised him, she’d never turned down a cuddle of any description before. 

“I’m not a doll, Arnold,” she said, turning back to face him.

He looked confused at this.

“I never said you were...”

“You can’t keep me inside a plastic box and stick me on a shelf because you’re terrified I might get a bloody scratch.”

“I only have your best interests at heart Sam,” he replied, making an overly conscious effort not to raise his voice in any way.

Shouting was a definite no-no on days like these. Somehow, on her darker days, his lovers mind had come to interpret angry voices as a direct link to violent behaviour.

Especially angry MALE voices.

She put her hand on his,

“I know you love me Arnold, and I love you too. It’s just that lately, you’ve been being way too overprotective.” 

He was dismayed to see a tear roll down her cheek, but even more dismayed at the fact that she still wouldn’t let him comfort her in the way he normally did.

He tried again to put his arms around her, but she backed away from him.

“How have I been being overprotective?” he said.

“You're everywhere I turn, always checking up on me, always checking I’m ok.”

“That’s because I’m looking after you Sam.”

“I don’t need looking after Arnold, I’m not a child” she said tenderly.

He said nothing, but she could see by the stubborn look on his face that he wasn’t going to let up.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and moved over to the wardrobe to fetch a pair of shoes.

“Well I’m going anyway Arnold, I’m fed up with waiting for your sodding authorisation!”

“You know I can’t let you do that Sam.”

“So what are you going to do?” she asked, daringly.

“You know what I’ll do if I have to.”

“The old ‘Locking me in our room’ thing’s getting a bit old don’t you think? Time to mix things up!” she said bitterly, slipping on her trainers.

“Samantha Simpson you are not going on this trip and I will chain you to this bed if I have to!” he shouted.

There was a long pause, which gave Rimmer more than enough time to fully realise his position as a prize pillock. 

Count one: Raising your smegging voice.  
Count two: Making a reference to her being imprisoned.

Locking her in a room was bad enough, he knew that, but threatening to chain her to an item of furniture, was another thing entirely. 

But his number one priority was to protect her, he had vowed as much in the bar not long after they’d first met. To ensure that nothing bad ever came her way again. She had had enough of that to last a lifetime. 

And so his reasons for wanting to keep her locked up were, in his opinion, entirely justifiable.

But the ‘chain threat’ had been completely out of order. 

“Wow,” she said, giving him a filthy look.  
“Low Arnold, really low.”

He watched her leave and put his head in his hands. 

He knew he was overdoing the whole ‘protecting thing’, he knew it full well. It was just that every time he considered letting her leave the ship, all the images from the factory came flooding back to him.  
Her, lying desolate on that cold and dirty floor, covered in injuries from head to toe.  
She had been a truly broken woman, in mind as well as body.  
He very nearly shed a holographic tear at the memory of it.

But he also couldn’t bear the thought of her resenting him. And she would do just that if he insisted on keeping such a tight rein on her.

He knew what he had to do, but he was not happy about it, not in the slightest.

He was also hoping against hope that he would not come to regret the decision he’d made.

He found her in the bunk room, badmouthing him to Lister.  
The scouser wasn’t really able to get much of a word in, and so he had resorted to just nodding in the places that he felt were appropriate.

“Has he always been this frustrating, Dave?”

“Well er...” Lister tailed off as he caught sight of Rimmer in the doorway.

“You stay with us at all times, do you understand?” said the hologram.

She turned to face him.

“Arnold?”

“Do you understand?” he asked her firmly.

“I understand,” she said, obediently.

“That means no wandering off!” he said, holding his finger up, as was his custom when he was instructing people on what to do.

“I won’t,” she said, the beginnings of a smile creeping across her face.

He sighed,

“Alright, you can come. I’m not overly happy about it, mind you.”

She threw her arms around his middle.

“This means the world to me,” she said gratefully.

“And I will try my hardest... to be a bit less protective,” he said, and this caused her to squeeze him even tighter. 

“You’ll have to teach me how to use a bazookoid!” she said, jumping back.

“No, no bazookoid,” he said firmly.

“But...”

“No buts Sam, the recoil is too powerful.”

“So I don’t get to have a gun?”

“No you don’t.”

His brook no arguments tone told her that she wouldn’t get anywhere there. It didn’t really bother her too much though, he had agreed to let her explore the derelict, and that was good enough for now.

“Good on yer Sam,” said Lister, as Rimmer left the room.  
“I didn’t think you’d ever manage to convince him!”

“Me neither!”

“Why don’t you just tell him to smeg off like the rest of us do? You’re your own person, just come on the trip, dont take any notice of him.”

“Umm...because he’s bigger than me,” she said, as though this were the most obvious thing in the whole world.

“Don’t you remember what happened at the last derelict?”

The scouser shook his head, and went to retrieve something from the microwave.

“When he discovered I was planning on going, he slung me over his shoulder, carried me back to our bedroom, and locked me in.”

“Oh yeah I remember! You were so angry, you were kickin and screamin all the way!” laughed Lister, as he set a plate overflowing with curry down on the table.

He stopped laughing pretty quickly when he noticed her sour face though.

She recalled the day herself. She had been so annoyed with him that she had refused to speak one word to him when they had all come back. He’d brought her back a beautiful diamond necklace, a peace offering no doubt, and she had taken it and tossed it straight in the bin.  
She didn’t think she’d ever been as satisfied as she had been at that moment, seeing his face crippled with anguish.

Of course once he had left she had fished it straight out of the bin. After trying it on, she fell completely in love with it, and had decided to hide it in a box at the back of her wardrobe. 

Maybe one day she’d tell him that she’d kept it...maybe not.

“Earth to Sam,” she heard Lister saying,

“What?” she said, slowly resurfacing from her memory.

“In Rimmer’s defence, we came across some pretty nasty simulants on our little day trip. Cat came back with a broken ankle, remember?”

“Yes,” she said weakly,  
“But that’s not really the point is it Dave?”

“No, I guess not,” he said, and began to stuff his face with chicken vindaloo.

“Don’t you got no bazookoid, baby?” asked Cat, while the five of them were on their way to Starbug.

The bright yellow of his suit was a little blinding in the stark light of the landing bay.

“Apparently I’m not allowed!”

“I have to agree with Mr Rimmer there, Miss Samantha, the bazookoid is a very powerful weapon. I’m not sure it would be suited to your..” he struggled to find an inoffensive way of referencing her size,  
“Your delicate stature, Miss.”

“Thank you Kryten, I don’t need to be reminded about my height!”

“My apologies, Miss.”

To Sam, it felt strange being in Starbug again. The last time she had been here, truths had come to light, truths that she never thought she’d ever tell anyone.  
The giant green beastie had been a sanctuary to her in her time of need.  
More importantly though, it had been the place where her and Rimmer’s relationship had been forged.

Where she had learned to trust him.

Rimmer must have been thinking the same thing, for he gave her a reassuring smile as he sat down.

She watched the others take their places.

“Where am I going to sit?” she enquired.

“Why, you can come and sit down on the step next to me, Miss,”

She took her seat and watched with fascination as Lister and Cat started up the ignition sequence, and the craft juddered as it took off.

“Christ alive, how old is this thing?”

“Very old,” replied the other four, in unison.

Once the craft reached the intended altitude, Sam said,

“Can I get up now?”

“No,” said Rimmer.

But she got up anyway, moving forward to look out of the front window. 

“This is so cool!” she said.  
“Is that the derelict in front?”

“It is indeed,” said Lister.

She stayed by his side for the majority of the journey, completely transfixed by the view of deep space.

They were almost at their destination, when the craft suddenly lurched to one side, landing Sam in Cat’s lap.

“Well, hello there baby!”

“For smeg’s sake Lister!” cried Rimmer,  
“What the bloody hell are you doing?”

“Hey it’s not my fault Rimmer, I got a cramp in my arm!”

“Do you need me or Kryten to take over, Lister?” came the angry voice from behind him.

“No! I’m fine now I told you, it was just a cramp!”

“Do you see now why I told you to stay sat down?” Rimmer said to Sam, in a voice that was calm, but firm.

“Alright alright!” she said, extricating herself from the felines lap.  
“Don’t get your holgrammatic pants in a twist!”

She moved over to sit back down next to Kryten.

Lister sniggered loudly at her comment, and all of a sudden the tension in the craft reached fever pitch. He could almost feel the hologram’s angry glare boring into the back of his skull.

He regained his composure.

“Come on Rimmer, give her a break, she’s only curious.”

“Lister I’d appreciate you focusing all your energy on not crashing the vessel, rather than lecturing me on how I should be talking to my girlfriend!”

“It was a minor hiccup Rimmer, we’re not exactly talking DEFCON 1 here! And Cat’s got it under control!”

“Lister, the idea of a next-to-useless co-pilot being in complete control of a vessel such as this one, does not reassure me in any way!” 

“Hey back off, water slide nostrils!” 

“There’s precious cargo onboard this craft now,” said Rimmer, ignoring the feline, “So pull yourself together!”

“Sorry Sam,” said Lister facetiously,  
“I didn’t realise that you were now referred to as cargo!”

“Stop trying to be funny Lister, and concentrate on flying!”

“For smeg’s sake Rimmer, what is it exactly that’s crawled up your arse this morning?”

“Nothing has crawled up my arse Lister, I just don’t understand why it seems so much to ask to have a competent pilot at the helm!”

“I am a more than competent...”

“Sirs!” said Krtyen, happy that he had a valid excuse to interrupt the bickering.  
“We really should be preparing for landing now.”

“Are you comfortable with landing us Listy, or would you like me to hold your hand?”

“I swear to god,” said Lister under his breath.

Cat whispered across to Lister,

“Goal-post head definitely got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

“You’re smeggin right,” Lister whispered back.

“Anymore of that and you’ll both be put on report!” snapped Rimmer from behind them.

“You can’t put us on report Rimmer!” Lister shouted back at him.

“I think you’ll find I can Lister! I am acting senior...”

“Please stop arguing!” cried Sam, with her hands clapped over her ears, and a look of intense distress on her face.

The scouser noticed that Kryten had placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Well done Lister! Now you’ve succeeded in upsetting the love of my life, is there anything else you would care to mess up?”

Lister went to come back with a witty retort, but when he saw the pleading look on Sam’s face, he held his tongue.

Rimmer didn’t say any more either, leaving a stony silence in the craft.

‘Well, this is gonna be one hell of a smeggin trip,” he thought, as he prepared for landing.


	2. Chapter 2

After Lister had, very adeptly in his opinion, landed Starbug, they shoved open the door to the derelict craft, and took in the sight before them.

What could once have been referred as a smart shopping outlet, was now nothing more than heaps of debris, broken statues, and furniture coated in inches of dust.

“Is this a shopping mall?” asked Cat.

“I think it certainly was one at some point,” said Sam. 

“These shops are looking pretty run down, do you reckon the place is abandoned Krytes?”

“Well, my scanner doesn’t seem to be picking anything up, Mr Lister sir.”

Lister slowly pushed forward, keeping his gun raised.

“I can’t see anything going on...  
Wait a minute, can you guys hear that?”

“It sounds like a skutter,” said Sam.

Sure enough, a maintenance droid appeared round one of the corners, and started making a beeline for them.

“Awww how cute,” cried Sam, who made to go and approach the droid, but was stopped short by a hand upon her arm.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

She rolled her eyes.

“It’s only a skutter Arnold!”

“We don’t know that for sure Sam!”

“Oh please don’t be a dick about this, Arnold!” she moaned, but the grip on her arm tightened, and so she gave up.

Lister approached the skutter, it was very similar to their own robots onboard the dwarf, except that it was black instead of blue, and its eyes were glowing purple, instead of red.

He bent down to regard it more closely, and that was when it bit him on the arm.

“Agggh!” he cried, whipping his injured limb back.  
“You little smegger!” he yelled, kicking the droid, and knocking it over onto its side.

Sam tried her best to ignore the  
‘That could have been you!’ expression currently being exhibited by her lover.

“Are you alright Mr Lister sir?!”

“No I’m not Kryten!”

“Let me have a look Dave,” said Sam, pulling the first aid kit off her shoulder.

She had been appointed the role of first aider for the duration of the trip, after pestering them all about wanting to be useful.

The scouser presented his arm to her.

“Shit Dave, this is bad.”

And it was bad, the wound looked deep, and was bleeding a lot.

Sam raised his arm up, and put pressure on it with a bandage.

“I didn't know you knew first aid, Miss?”

“I got my first aid badge when I was a Girl Scout.”

Once the bleeding had stopped, she began to carefully clean the wound.

“Is that ok?” she asked,  
“I’m not hurting you too much am I?”

“Nah you’re good, you’re a lot more gentle than Kryten is...No offence Krytes!”

“None taken sir,” replied the mechanoid, although it was clear from his facial expression and tone of voice that he had indeed taken a lot of offence from it.

“Hurry up and fix monkeyman’s arm! I wanna go shopping!”  
Cat was literally hopping from one foot to the other in his excitement.

“Well go on then you ignorant moggie! Just don’t get into any trouble along the way, Lister’s caused enough of that already!”

“Smeg off Rimmer!”

“What I don’t understand Kryten,” continued the hologram as he watched Sam bandaging Listers arm,  
“Is how it was able to bite in the first place? Skutters don’t have teeth!”

Krtyen moved forward to inspect the overturned droid.

“These claws are razor sharp! It’s almost as if they’ve been designed to attack humans.”

“Can someone please blow it up or somethin?” asked Lister,  
“I really don’t fancy being bitten again.”

“I’d prefer not to use the bazookoids if we can help it sir. We don’t want to run the risk of attracting more of them.  
“What I suggest we do is...”

He was interrupted by a crashing sound, and turned to see the skutter in a crumpled heap over the by the wall.

“Oh nice one Rimmer!” said Lister,  
“Cos kickin it into the wall hasn’t made a huge noise at all, has it!?”

“It’s made much less noise than a bazookoid would have done!”

“I seriously doubt that...” began Lister.

“Shut up!” said Sam,  
“We won’t hear them coming if we’re talking!”

They all stood with baited breath, waiting to see if the noise had attracted any more unwelcome visitors.

It hadn’t.

“Right guys,” said Lister, examining his bandaged arm and giving Sam a little ‘thank you’ nod.

“I suggest we push forward, and keep an eye out for any more of those little smeggers.”

They passed by a decrepit little clothing store.

Cat stuck his head out,  
“Sam baby, you got to get in here!” 

As unsavoury as it looked, it was still a clothes shop.  
And Sam loved her clothes.

She went to move, but was stopped by a hand on her arm again.

“For god’s sake Arnold, I only want to go clothes shopping!  
And Cat’s gonna be with me!”

Rimmer gave Sam one of his looks. Thankfully she knew this one well. It was the ‘I’m not happy about this, but I suppose I’m going to have to give in to you,’ one.

And Rimmer knew he had to give in, he had promised as much after all.  
She had made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want him hovering over her.

He didn’t trust the cat though.

“Krtyen’s going with you as well!”

“Good enough,” she sighed.  
“Come on Kryten, you can hold the clothes for me while I try them on.”

“But Mr Rimmer sir! Surely my scientific knowledge would be better suited...”

“That’s an order Kryten! And if she gets so much as a scratch...”

Kryten pulled a rather substantial mechanical grimace, and followed on behind Sam.  
The Mech knew nothing about fashion, and he wasn’t enthralled at the prospect of learning about it either.

“What do you reckon’s behind here?” Lister asked Rimmer, after the two men had made a left off from the main complex, and come a cross a big iron door round the back of one of the stores.

“I don’t know Lister, x-ray vision isn’t listed as one of my holographic ‘super powers.’

The scouser rolled his eyes. 

“I know what this is about, you know man.”

“What are you drivelling about?”

“Why you’re bein such a smeg-head.”

“Well go on Lister, enlighten me!”

“You’re worried that now you've allowed Sam to come exploring with us, she’s gonna want to do it every time, and you’re convinced that somethin bad’s gonna happen to her.”

The hologram didn’t say anything for a long time.  
Eventually he clapped his hands.

“Bravo Lister, you really should consider a career in psychotherapy!”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No I do not! Now can we please get on with what we were doing?!”

“Fine whatever...  
I’m thinkin we should check this room out.”

“Very good Lister, after you,” the hologram bowed and ushered him towards the door.

“Oh smeg,” said Lister, once they were inside.

The room was filled with skutters, just like the one that had attacked Lister. There were so many of the little droids that there was barely a patch of uncovered floor. Unlike the previous skutter, however, these appeared to be out of action. 

“What kind of shop is this?” questioned Rimmer.

“Yeah, and who’d wanna buy one of these?”

“Someone who had an enemy?” suggested the hologram, who jumped not long after the sentence was out of his mouth. His body suddenly crackled and popped really loudly and, one by one, every skutter in the room whirred into life.

Rimmer instinctively jumped back behind Lister, as one of the droids began making a beeline for them.

“Rimmer! What the hell have you gone and done!?” cried the younger man.

He watched with horror as the small metal monsters began heading for him. He made sure to keep his arms well out the way this time but, strangely, these skutters seemed to be interested in a very different part of the scousers body.

“Smeggin hell Rimmer! They’re headin for me groin!”

The hologram attempted to shoot at the skutters, from his spot behind Lister, but the minute his rocket made contact with one of the robots, it disintegrated into nothing.

Desperate to save his crown jewels, Lister ran and hid behind Rimmer.

“Well thank you very much Lister! So my genitals are expendable?!”

“Yours are just made of light! You’ll be able to...regrow them or somethin!”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t going to hurt like buggery!”

Determined not to become prey to the mechanical monster, Rimmer ran to get the door open, and swore when he discovered that it had somehow locked itself.

This then uncovered Lister again, and gave the skutters clear access to his delicate man parts.  
He jumped up onto a nearby counter which, thankfully, the little rogue robots couldn’t reach. Skutters weren’t known for their climbing ability.

“Do somethin Rimmer! Before I lose me love spuds once and for all!”

Rimmer considered. 

‘They’re only skutters,” he thought to himself,  
‘I’ll crush the little bastards one by one if I have to. It should be a piece of cake, given that they’re completely focused on Lister.’

But Rimmer was mistaken.

He reached out to the skutter nearest him, and placed his hands on it. He was just about to commence crushing, when the mechanical monster spun round with a speed that no skutter should ever be capable of, and bit the tip of his index finger clean off with it’s razor sharp claws.

The pain was excruciating, causing him to fall down onto his side. He watched in amazement as his software quickly, and rather impressively, replaced the digit in its entirety. For a moment his whole hand shone so brightly that he was forced to turn his head away from it.

Rimmer was more than relieved to note that, now his finger had been restored, the pain seemed to vanish instantaneously.

Sometimes, he reasoned, being a hologram wasn’t quite as bad as he always made it out to be.

He slowly got back up onto his feet.

“Rimmer! Help me!”

“What the smeg do you expect me to do!?  
I’ve just had my finger bitten off! There’s no way I’m going anywhere near those things again!”

“Try kickin them!”

“I’m not going to risk losing a foot Lister!”

“Well go and find Kryten then!!”

A very determined Rimmer shoved a hard-light shoulder into the iron door and, thankfully, managed to knock it off its hinges.

He raced back to the others, moving at such a speed that he knocked the door to the clothing store off its hinges as well. 

He hadn’t planned on running into this door, and the high speed collision managed to set off his ‘spatial awareness glitch’

“Arnold!” cried Sam when she saw him.  
“You have no idea how gorgeous theses tops are! And most of them fit me as well..”

She tailed off when she saw the strange look on his face.

“Arnold what is it?! What’s the matter!?”

Cat appeared,

“Goal-post head has glitched!” he called back to Kryten, in a completely uninterested tone.  
His mind was currently focused on deciding whether he preferred the striped or the spotted trousers better.

“He’s broken Kryten!” shouted a panicked Sam,  
“I don’t know to fix him, and he’s really scaring me!”

It was a disturbing sight to witness,  
The vacant look in the hologram’s eyes spoke of someone who could easily been residing in another galaxy entirely, and his forward and back movements made it seem as if he were trying, feebly, to dodge an invisible attacker.

“What happened?” said Kryten, from behind a mountain of clothes.

“He crashed into the door!” she cried anxiously.

“Oh, that’ll just be his ‘spatial awareness glitch’ Miss, he’ll fix himself in a moment or two.”

“What the bloody hell is that?!”

“It’s a flaw in his programming,” said Kryten, setting the pile of clothes down on a nearby chair.  
“I expect it was triggered by him running into the door.”

“So he’ll be ok?”

“In about five minutes or so yes.”

Eventually, Rimmer’s form disappeared into his light-bee, and then promptly reappeared again.

“I must warn you Miss, his short term memory will have been affected.”

As the hologram rematerialised, Sam launched herself at him, pulling him into the tightest hug that she was capable of executing, given her meagre muscle structure. 

“Oh god, please say you remember me Arnold?!”

“Of course I remember you Sam,” he said, frowning at her.

“It’s just his short term memory that will have been affected Miss Samantha,” corrected Kryten.

She nodded impatiently at the mech, then turned her attention back to her lover.

“Why the hell did you come racing in here like that anyway?”

He stared back at her blankly,

“I don’t remember.”

“His short term memory...”

“Yes thanks Kryten I got it!” she snapped, causing the mechanoid to shrink back a little.  
Then she turned upon him and Cat with a severe look on her face.

“I think Dave’s in trouble.”

They managed to locate the room containing the scouser by following the sounds of his petrified yelling. 

“Are you alright Mr Lister?!” called out Kryten when they got there.

“No I’m not!” shouted the man, shielding his crotch in a frantic manner.  
“Get rid of them!” The skutters had somehow worked out that they could reach Lister more easily if one climbed on top of the other. They weren’t achieving this very successfully, but it was more than enough to up the scousers anxiety levels considerably.

“Were they all like this when you came in?” Kryten addressed Rimmer.

“I don’t know Kryten! I’m still having problems accessing my short term memory database!”

He growled in frustration and began pacing the small bit of floor that wasn’t currently being occupied by the malevolent droids, squeezing his eyes shut in concentration.

“I think I may have seen skutters like this somewhere before, or perhaps I’ve read about them,” pondered the mechanoid.  
“For some strange reason, this situation doesn’t seem to be entirely unfamiliar to me.”

“I do not like the look of those babies one little bit,” said Cat.

“Me neither,” agreed Sam,  
Maybe...”

“Shut up!” Rimmer shouted to the room in general.

“My memory’s coming back!  
Something happened with my projection, some sort of electric shock, that’s what started them up!”

“Well that is most peculiar sir,” replied a baffled Kryten.

“That’s what happened,” he affirmed. 

“Well can’t you do what you did again Arnold? Maybe that will shut them down again?” 

“Sam...” he said slowly, inserting a much larger amount of patience into his voice than he ever did with the others,

“I can’t do that because I don’t KNOW what I did...it just happened automatically.”

“You tried shootin them goal-post head?”

“The rocket disintegrated,” confirmed Rimmer.

“Damn!” he said,  
“We need a plan, novelty condom head! Sooner rather than later!”

The mehcanoid concentrated in silence for a bit, and then said,

“The power! We could try shutting down the power!” 

“Kryten,” sneered Rimmer,  
“Surely if these little blighters are running off anything, it would be batteries!”

“With respect Mr Rimmer sir, we don’t have a clue as to what technology is apparent on this ship.” 

“I don’t get it though Kryten!” said Sam,  
“Why are they so obsessed with his bollocks?!”

“The only thing I can think of is that they have been trained almost like guard dogs. They have been taught to target weak spots, and where is the weakest spot on a man’s body?”

“That makes sense,” she replied,  
“But then, where is the weakest spot on a woman’s body?”

The three men exchanged glances, none could come up with an answer.

But it appeared that they were all safe for the time being anyway, as the robots seemed to be focusing all their efforts on attacking Lister, and were ignoring the others entirely.

Sam said, 

“Kryten, why did the one out in the main complex bite his arm and not his...”

“Could you lot stop with your bleedin mothers meeting, and help me the smeg out here!”

“I’m gonna go sort out that power situation!” said Cat.

“I’ll come with you Cat,” said Sam.

“No,”  
A hand was placed on her arm.

“I’m going to help Cat, Arnold!” she said irritably, trying to free her arm.

“I don’t trust him to do a good enough job looking after you!”

“You’re doing it again Arnold! Besides, we’ve already established that they’re not going to come after me! It seems that they’re only really interested in testicles aren’t they!?”

He slowly relinquished his grip.

“If anything happens to her, you ignorant animal!”

“Don’t you worry about nothing non-bud, I got the lady’s back!”

Cat and Sam made their way down a hallway that was so covered in dust, it made the latter sneeze, loudly, and several times.

“Bless you, baby,”

They walked past about a dozen shops that she knew she would have been interested in exploring, had the safety of Lister’s manhood not been on the line.

She saw jewellery shops, more clothing shops, video game shops.

“Hey look Cat,” she ran up to the window of one of the game shops and pointed to the centre of it.

“It’s Tekken 3000!”

“Can you fit it in your first aid kit?” he asked eagerly.

“Sure can!” she replied, unzipping it to show how much room was inside.

She darted into the shop and came out again with her prize.

Making their way further down the artificial street, Sam began to notice a drop in temperature, and the lighting was becoming significantly poorer. In fact, the whole atmosphere was getting creepy.  
She was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, but didn’t want to let on about that. She was trying her best to be brave, the last thing she wanted was for Cat to think that she was wimping out before they’d completed their mission.  
But the darker and colder it got, the more she wanted to double back and join the others. 

She shivered and, turning to view Cat, she noticed that he was feeling the cold too. 

She sincerely hoped that his sense of direction was better than hers, as she was already lost.

They exchanged uneasy glances.

“I reckon the room we’re looking for is gonna be down those stairs,” she ventured, sounding a lot braver than she felt.

“Good thinking baby!” replied Cat, pointing his gun every which way, as though he were anticipating an attack from every direction at once. 

It looked rather comical, but it was reassuring to see how ‘on the ball’ he was, combat wise.

‘He won’t let me come to harm.’

She began to make her way down the stairs, but the feline jumped in front of her.

“Uh uh! Me first! I’ve got your back baby, remember!?”

Sam smiled, he was clearly enjoying his ‘hero’ role.

Cat certainly was enjoying playing the role of ‘hero.’ He had never let on to the others about this, but deep down it had always been one of his biggest dreams, to come to the aid of a damsel in distress.

Something about the dingy stairwell was making him feel really nervous though. His nipples were tingling like crazy, but he didn’t have a clue why. The deeper they went, the colder the air seemed to get, and there was a strange chemical smell. It was almost like someone had mopped the floor many light years ago, and the smell was somehow lingering.

After a couple more flights of stairs, they found the power room.

There was a large generator in one corner of the basement, and some pretty standard looking electronic consoles, but the opposite side of the room was what really caught their attention.

There were two devices. The first looked like a giant metal lollipop with strange levers coming out of it. The second, was hexagonal in shape, and had what looked to be thick gold cable wound tightly round its edges.

“Where do we even start down here Cat?”  
Now she was absolutely freezing, her fluffy jumper doing nothing to hold her heat in. 

He shook his head, and then did something that she never thought in a million years she’d ever see him do.

He removed his bright yellow jacket and placed it on her shoulders.

“But Cat you’ll...”

“I’l be alright,” he assured her, and moved over to check the back of the basement.

His jacket made very little difference to her temperature situation, it was only a thin, flimsy material, but it been so gentlemanly of him to offer it to her, that she wasn’t going to criticise. 

She began to run her fingers over the old machinery, brushing off thick layers of dust. 

As an attempt to distract herself from the cold, she tried to imagine herself as a great space hero.

She hadn’t actually done anything heroic yet, well, she hadn’t really done anything, as a matter of fact. 

Yes, she had fixed Lister’s arm for him, but that hadn’t been particularly exciting. She wanted to do what the others had done over the years, she wanted to be brave, she wanted to be useful, she wanted to be...

Her thoughts instantly slipped away from her, almost as if they had been vacuumed directly out of her skull, and Sam felt herself falling to the ground.

Cat, who was currently up at the other end of the basement, had his bazookoid poised, ready and alert for anything that might come his way. His job was to protect the lady, and he was determined to do a damn good job at it.

He turned in her direction though when he heard a sound, and rushed over to find her lying on the ground.

Although he noticed straight away that she wasn’t just LYING on the ground, she was shaking violently. Her whole body convulsing so much, that her head was being lifted off the floor with the strain of it.

“Hey baby, quit messing around!” he said jokingly.

But when she didn’t respond, and the convulsions began to get worse rather than better, he began to panic.

“Baby,” he said cautiously,  
“Why are you doing that? What’s wrong!?” The pitch of his voice began to rise.

“Stop it baby! Please stop it! I don’t know what to do!!”

Cat had never really had much going on in the cranial department, but he put his best effort into trying to work out what was happening.

He glanced around her, and saw that one of her hands was in contact with the strange metal lollipop device, and the answer hit him instantly. 

‘An electric shock!’

Forgetting about his own safety, he lunged forward and gathered her up in his arms, breaking her contact with the strange machine.

For some strange reason, the current didn’t pass through to him, but what was even stranger was the fact that she still seemed to be twitching a little, even though she was no longer in contact with the electricity.

But Cat lacked the brain power and, for the present moment, the sane state of mind to analyse this too deeply.

He knew he had to get her back to the others as quickly as he could.  
As he raced up the stairs, tears threatened to leave his eyes, and his stomach began twisting in knots.

“I’m gonna get you help baby, you’re gonna be fine, I’m gonna get you help,”  
He kept repeating this statement, over and over.

‘I was supposed to protect her,’ he thought, 

‘That was my one job...and I failed.’

Cat had never really cared about anyone in his life, until Sam had come along.  
To begin with he had been all over her like a rash. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen [although he had to admit to himself that he hadn’t seen a whole lot of them].  
To begin with, he really thought he could have had a chance with her, but she was clearly devoted to old alphabet head, and so he knew he’d lucked out there.  
Besides, Rimmer had made it more than clear to him on several occasions that Sam was ‘off limits,’ and getting on the wrong side of Rimmer was never a fun experience.  
And so he had begun to treat Sam with the same disregard with which he treated all the others.

That was until she found him crying up in the observation dome. She had been looking for Bob at the time, and had happened upon the distressed feline completely by accident.

“Cat, what is it?” she had asked in that soft, delicate voice of hers.

He remembered the sweet fruity scent of her perfume, and the softness of her jeans, as she had laid his head down in her lap.

She had begun to stroke his hair tenderly, making soothing shushing noises, and before he knew it, he was offloading a whole mess of emotion that he hadn’t even realised that he had been bottling up.

He had sobbed about how pointless and pathetic his life was, and how the others called him stupid all the time. He had told her how desperately lonely he was, and how he had never had a proper relationship with a woman.  
He had told her everything.

Everything he could never tell the others.

She had said nothing back, she had just listened, continuing to stroke his hair, until he had been so relaxed, that he had felt on the verge of falling asleep.

He had begged her not to tell the others, and so it had become their little secret.

Being there for him at a time when he had been at his most vulnerable, had officially made Sam the kindest person he’d ever known.

Cat upped the speed of his running, he didn’t even care about what Rimmer might do to him when he discovered his beloved woman in an unconscious state. Right now all he could think of was getting Sam to safety.

Meanwhile, over in the skutter shop, the other three breathed a collective sigh of relief, as the malevolent droids shut down unanimously.

And Lister’s genitals were safe once more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few f words thrown in here.

The bottom of Rimmer’s world fell out when he saw Cat bring Sam through the doorway. 

“What have you done to her, you stupid animal?!” he roared, taking the unconscious woman from Cat’s arms into his own.

“I didn’t do nothin!” cried the hysterical feline,  
“She was fine one minute, then I turned around and she was on the floor!”

Rimmer laid her gently down.

“She’s cold! Why is she so cold?!” he demanded.

“It was really cold down there!” said Cat, who was still shivering himself.

“What in silicone heaven happened down there?” asked Kryten, watching Rimmer climb on top of Sam, until his whole body was covering every inch of hers. With almost a foot’s height difference between the two of them, this wasn’t a difficult task to achieve.

It would have seemed a somewhat inappropriate gesture for a time like this, had the others not been fully aware of the large amount of heat that holograms emitted.

“She’s not breathing!” he shouted, and prepared to do mouth to mouth on her...then realised that he couldn’t.

“Someone do mouth to mouth on her!” he cried frantically. 

Cat stepped forward,

“Not you!!”

Lister got down on to his knees, moved forward, and then stopped.

“Why are you hesitating, you moron? Get on with it!”

“Rimmer, she...”

The hologram grabbed hold of Lister’s jacket, and began to shake him backwards and forwards.

“Get on with it!”

“Rimmer, she’s breathing!” shouted the other man.

The hologram dropped his hold on Lister, and focused on the woman beneath him. She was indeed breathing, the soft rise and fall of her chest subtle, but evident.

“Oh my little angel,” he said with relief and pulled her up into a hug. Initially her arms hung down limply by the side of him, but after a few more moments, life returned to them, and she placed them feebly onto his shoulders.

“You know Rimmer, Cat could really use some of your heat right now.”

“Well he’s not getting any, Lister!” spat the hologram angrily.

Lister removed his jacket and placed it round Cat’s shoulders, while Kryten fussed about looking for a blanket.

But Rimmer didn’t care about any of what was going on around him, Sam was his only priority right now.

As she was laid back down on the floor, the woman beneath him became aware of an intense heat, and the horrible cold that she had been feeling just melted away. She could see the faint blue glint of a holographic H. The letter of the alphabet which had initially, back in the factory, been a source of turmoil, was now a far greater comfort than anything she had ever known. 

‘You’re safe now Sam,’ the little voice inside her head told her, and she drifted into a light sleep.

A little later on, Lister found Rimmer and Sam in the small science room at the back of Starbug. 

“How’s she been?” asked the scouser, regarding the sleeping woman in the bed.

“Kryten says she’s just resting.  
“When I get hold of that animal!” he said, his voice instantly rising into an angry tone and his fist clenching.

“Rimmer you can’t blame Cat for this,”

“Yes I bloody well can!”

“Rimmer! It was an electric shock! How could he have prevented that?”

“Well he should have been keeping a closer eye on her!  
And Kryten’s not so sure that it was an electric shock anyway.”

“Why?”

For answer, the other man turned both Sam’s palms up right.

“There’s no entry wound, and no exit wound anywhere that we can see either. Look, there’s not even a burn mark.”

Lister could clearly see that Sam’s small, milk white hands, were indeed uninjured.

“Well, what does he think happened then?”

“He doesn’t know,” shrugged Rimmer,  
“He’s gone down to the basement to check the machinery out for himself.”

Suddenly they heard a soft moan coming from the figure on the bed, 

“Sam?” said Rimmer softly.

She slowly opened her eyes, and once she was fully awake, Rimmer clenched one of her hands in his.

“How are you?” 

“I’m ok.”

“You had me worried sick!”

“You had us ALL worried sick,” corrected Lister.

“What happened?” she asked weakly.

“We’re not really sure,” replied Rimmer,  
“Cat thinks you had an electric shock, but Kryten seems to think otherwise.”

“Oh,” she said, not seeming to be overly surprised about what had happened to her.

Lister noticed this, but the hologram appeared not to have done. 

“But you’re going to be fine, and look, Kryten’s made you some supper.” 

He gestured at the plate of boiled eggs and toast sitting on the table beside her.

Lister heard a noise behind him, and turned to notice Cat hovering in the doorway.  
He had a blanket round his shoulders.

“Oh no! Don’t you even think about setting foot in this room!” shouted Rimmer, who had also spotted the loitering feline.

“Rimmer man, he’s pretty cut up, he just wants to know she’s ok.”

“None of this would have happened,” he said, raising his voice at the feline,  
“If you had just done the one thing that I asked you to do!”

Cat, for perhaps one of the very few times in his life, was speechless, he just remained hovering in the doorway.

“It’s alright Arnold,” said Sam sleepily.

“Not it’s not alright!”

“I want to see him Arnold!” she said firmly.

“I don’t want him in here Sam!”

“Arnold, will you pull your egotistical head out of your great big arse for five minutes and listen to me!”

Lister smiled at this, Sam’s insulting outbursts always entertained him.

“What did you just say to me?” asked Rimmer, his eyebrows raised to the ceiling.

He did sit down though.

“Cat saved me Arnold; he found me unconscious, and he brought me back to you guys. He’s nothing short of a hero.”

As much as it pained him, Rimmer couldn’t deny that.

He reluctantly nodded at the feline.

Watching him come into the room so tentatively, Lister didn’t think he had ever seen the feline so moved about anything.

Cat approached the bed with his head down.

“You gonna be ok, baby?”

“I’m gonna be fine Cat,” she reassured him.  
“And thank you for saving me.”

He brightened instantly at this,

“Good, cos you gotta be ok, I ain’t playing Tekken with monkey boy!”

“Oi you!” said Lister.

The scouser noticed Rimmer’s confused expression.

“It’s a video game, Rimmer.”

Kryten entered.

“Well, what did you find out?” questioned Lister.

“It’s rather curious,” replied the mech,  
“I’ve examined all the machinery in the basement, and it has caused me to come to the conclusion that these skutters were designed to function like ‘guard dogs,’ if you will.

“Guard dogs?” said Rimmer, his trademark frown adorning his face.

“Indeed. What you and Mr Lister believed was a shop, was actually a store room for the mall’s high tech security system.”

Lister tried to piece things together,

“What, so you’re saying that these little smeggers were being controlled by the machinery in the basement? How?”

“By mind control Mr Lister, sir.”

“That’s pretty advanced machinery,” pondered the scouser.

“But why would they wanna use those dumb robots in the first place?” asked Cat.

“To save on staffing requirements I would imagine,” said the mech.  
“Why have ten security guards wandering about the place, when you can have robots doing the job for you, and have them all controlled by one person? Closely controlled, I might add. For some reason they opted for this mind control method, rather than attempting to program the droids, much as we have done on the Dwarf. I’m not overly sure what stirred them into action though.” 

Realisation suddenly dawned on Rimmer,  
“My electronic field! Of course! That’s what triggered them!” 

When he saw Sam’s confused face, he continued.

“I have a small amount of electricity that runs around my outside perimeter. It’s much too low of a current to harm any human or animal, but if these skutters were tuned into picking up on electricity, it makes sense that they would be able to feed off me.”

“But why were they being all aggressive? If there was no one controlling them?” asked Lister.

“Well that is a tricky one to answer, I think the only explanation is that the effect Mr Rimmer had on them riled them up, so to speak.”

“Yeah, he has that effect on most people,” replied the scouser under his breath.

“Yeah but Kryten,” asked Sam,  
“What about the one we met in the hallway? It was fully functioning before Arnold went anywhere near it.”

“I can’t answer that Miss...perhaps it had come into contact with another power source at some time or other?”

“This is all very well Kryten, but I still don’t understand how Sam getting an electric shock comes into any of this?”

“As I said before, Mr Rimmer, I don’t think an electric shock is quite what we’re dealing with here.  
With your permission, I would like to conduct a quick brain scan on Miss Samantha.”

“Why on Io do you want to do that?” asked the hologram.

“There is just something that I wish to rule out,” replied the mech.

“Well get on with it then!”

Kryten fetched a small scanner from the back of the room, and proceeded to scan Sam’s head. He jumped with surprise when he saw the results displayed on the small screen.

“What is it?” asked Rimmer, alarmed at the mechanoid’s reaction.

Kryten looked at the others, wide eyed and serious,

“Miss Samantha didn’t suffer an electric shock at all! She had a seizure! And it was that seizure which must have caused the skutters to reset, call it an overload, if you like.”

“Well that explains the lack of burn marks,” said Lister.

“What would have caused that?” asked Rimmer

“The activity in her brain is steadily calming down, but it’s quite clear to me that this seizure was brought on by epilepsy. As you may already know, epilepsy causes an electrical storm in the brain, and it was this ‘brain electricity’ which must have passed through to the mind control device.”

“So...wait a minute,” said Sam slowly,  
“I saved you guys? My seizure overloaded the system and shut down the skutters?”

“That is correct,” confirmed Kryten.

“Wow, I actually did something heroic,” she said softly.

“Way to go Sam!” said Lister, high-fiving her.

The three men then began to clap and cheer at the temporarily bedridden woman, and she smiled graciously at their attention.  
The only person who wasn’t cheering was Rimmer.

“Umm bud,” said Cat, tapping Lister lightly on the shoulder.  
“Hologram about to explode at one o clock.”

Lister glanced over, and flinched momentarily, 

“That’s certainly not a happy face,” he mumbled to Cat.

“Come on guys,” he said to the other two men,  
“Let’s go and check on things in the cockpit.”

Kryten cottoned on instantly, and, surprisingly, so did Cat.

“I don’t believe this,” said Rimmer, once they had gone.

“Arnold I...” she tried to say, but didn’t seem to be able to find the words.

“Well, what have you got to say for yourself?” he demanded.

“I was gonna tell you...”

“When, Sam? When were you going to tell me?”

“Soon, I just...”

He pointed a finger at her,

“You should have told me that you’ve got smegging epilepsy! You should have told me months ago!”

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“You could have died, Sam!” he yelled at her, all attempts to refrain from sounding aggressive, completely lost in the emotion he was currently caught up in.  
“I call that a pretty big deal!”

“Yeah but I didn’t, did I!” she protested weakly.

“And there was I, really wanting to believe that you were ready to come out with us. More fool me!” he said bitterly.

“I am ready!”

“What caused it?” he demanded,  
“Something specific? These sodding video games!?” he shouted, picking up the copy of Tekken and slamming it down on the floor, shattering the case.

“Well you won’t be playing these anymore, I can tell you!”

“Arnold, it’s not the video games...”

“Don’t lie to me Sam!”

“See this is why I didn’t tell you! Because you wouldn’t have let me go to the bloody toilet without being supervised!”

“Well I’m not sure that I can ever really trust you to do anything again can I? Not now you’ve lied to me.”

“Oh fuck off Arnold,” she said angrily.

“You know how I feel about that word, Sam!”

“I’m trying to tell you that...”

“I should have locked you up! I should have done everything I possibly could to stop you coming on this stupid trip!” 

She raised her voice to match his.

“If I’d stayed on Red Dwarf, I would have still had the seizure wouldn’t I?!  
And who would have been around to help me?”

She was satisfied to note that he had no answer for this.

After a while, he sat down, and said in a quieter voice,

“I need to know what caused it Sam.”

“I ran out of my medication,” she replied sheepishly.

“You ran out of your medication,” sighed Rimmer.  
“And you didn’t think it prudent to tell anyone this?”

She didn’t reply.

“Why didn’t your parents inform me of this?”

“I told mum that I’d already told you.”

“Fantastic! So you lied to her as well?  
How am I supposed to keep you safe Sam, if you won’t bloody behave yourself?”

“I’ve told you not to talk to me like that!”

He got up, and began to pace the floor.

“Well, there’s going to be change in the rules from now on...”

“Stop talking to me like I’m a child!”

“I’ll revoke all your privileges, all the things you like doing!”

“Arnold, I asked you to stop talking to me like that!”

“And if you even think about disobeying me...”

That was breaking point for Samantha Simpson.

“I’ve already got one father Arnold, I don’t need another one!” she yelled at him,  
“So take your ‘I’m never going to be a daddy’ issues and fuck off someplace else with them!” 

At the complete mercy of her rage, she gave in to her urgent desire to hurl an egg cup in his general direction.

The item struck the side of his forehead, and all at once his nostrils began to flare, which told her exactly what mood he was heading into.

Her lover didn’t process emotion very well.  
She suspected that it was largely due to bottling stuff up over the years, and not ever really having a proper outlet for it. She had her suspicions that it was all connected to his childhood somehow. The flared nostrils indicated clearly to her that her lover’s artificial brain had short circuited to it’s default mood state.

Anger.

This was further confirmed when she heard him shove Kryten out of the way on his way out.  
“Mr Rimmer I...”

This was followed by a crashing noise, and Lister’s angry cry of 

“Oh no you don’t! If you want to hulk out, you go outside! You are not trashing Starbug! And don’t go giving me that look! It might scare Cat and Kryten, but it doesn’t scare me! Go on, get the smeg out!”

Judging by the slamming of the craft’s door, Lister had successfully managed to get his point across.

It was, at times, easy to forget who was the older of the two men.

“Should we go and check on Sam?” said Cat.

“I’ll go and see,” replied Kryten.

He appeared in the doorway.

“Is it alright to come in, Miss Samantha?”

“Knock yourself, out Kryten.”

“Pardon me Miss, but how would that help with the current situation?”

“It means yes you can come in, Kryten,” she said, a little irritably.

She watched him come in and sit down on the chair next to her, and then said,

“You wouldn’t believe what I’ve just said to him.”

“Yes...we did hear everything.”

“It was a horrible thing to say, wasn’t it?”

Kryten didn’t reply straight away, which confirmed her suspicions.  
Eventually he said,  
“Oh well, I’m sure everything will turn out alright, Miss.

“I threw an egg cup at him Kryten.”

“Believe me, Miss Samantha, Mr Rimmer has had a lot worse thrown at him over the years.”

“I’m just so fed up with him being so dominant over me all the time, Kryten.  
Just lately, he’s been treating me like a kid. You guys must have noticed?”

“Well yes, but that’s just how Mr Rimmer is, Miss, he’s like it with all of us. He’s bossy, he’s domineering, he always thinks he’s in the right...why I could go on all night!” Krtyen threw his arms up in the air. 

“But you knew this when you got together with him, so what’s changed?”

She was silent for a moment.

“I know, it’s just...I don’t know Kryten.”

“Well all I can say for sure,” the mech continued,  
“Is that Mr Rimmer adores you, I know he does. Granted, he doesn’t always go about things the right way, I can certainly attest to that.  
“But that doesn’t mean that his intentions aren’t good...mostly...well, sometimes...well, actually...”

“It’s fine Kryten, I get the picture, and I know that’s just the way he is...”

Krtyen patted her hand in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

“I’m sure you’ll both work things out.”

Watching Kryten leave, Sam wondered if she hadn’t been a little too hard on the hologram.

The fact that he was so fiercely protective spoke volumes about the amount of love he had for her.  
And deep down, she liked it, it made her feel safe, and secure, and after all she had been through...a protector was just what she needed. She just needed him to simmer down on the old ‘father/daughter’ speak. Of course, their somewhat insane age gap wasn’t helping that particular situation one bit.

After about half an hour or so, she heard the door to the craft open.

“Have you calmed down now?” she heard Lister say.

“Yes I’m fine Lister!”

“What’s all that stuff you got?”

“Lister, will you please just let me the smeg in!” 

Not long after that, the handsomest man in the universe [in her opinion anyway] popped his head round the door.

“Is it safe to come in? Or are there any other random items of airborne crockery that I should be concerned about?” he asked.

“It’s safe,” she confirmed.

He came in carrying a massive pile of clothes, with a video game on top.

“What’s all this?” she enquired.

“Well,” he said, setting his gifts down on the table.

“I was pretty sure I’d destroyed this,” he said, bending down to retrieve the cracked Tekken case. He opened it up to discover that the disc was indeed smashed into a million pieces.

“So I found you another one,” he said picking it up and examining it.  
“It’s in a big box so I’m guessing it’s a collector’s edition or something.”

“Awesome,” she said, grabbing it off him and tearing open the box.

“Sweet! There’s a figure of Nina Williams inside!”

“I have absolutely no idea who or what that is,” he said, looking totally blank.  
“Anyway, I ransacked that clothing store, and brought back everything I could find that was in your size.”

“Thank you,” she said softly,  
“That was a really sweet thing to do. What’s that box under the clothes?”

“That’s something for me,” he said grinning.

She could just make out the words  
‘Design and paint your own army.’

“I thought you’d gone back into the mall just to have a tantrum,” she said.

“I didn’t have a tantrum Sam,” he said, wincing at that turn of phrase.  
“I was just letting off a little steam.”

“What did you do?” she asked knowingly.

“Nothing particularly remarkable. Although it’s probably safe to say that there are now some serious structural issues in the appliance store, along with a thoroughly dismantled washing machine...” he paused momentarily,  
“And two crushed refrigerators.”

She smiled,  
“Nothing too remarkable then?”

He smiled back, it was the gentle one, the one he reserved solely for her.

“Arnold, I’m sorry...” she began, but he cut her off.

“Do you know why I treat you the way I do, Sam?”

She shook her head.

“Let me just set one thing straight, this isn’t some weird Freudian father and daughter complex thingy. I know I’ll never be able to have children Sam, and some days it gets to me a lot, as you know. But I don’t think of you as my child.”

She was about to reply, when he cut in with

“Do you think I think it’s healthy for me to be obsessing about your welfare every minute of the day?”

“Arnold I,”

“I haven’t finished,” he said, giving her the look that he gave everyone whenever they interrupted him.

“When I first laid eyes on you in that hell hole, I felt sick, I mean physically sick. The state you were in Sam...”

“I know Arnold! I was there!”

This time, he didn’t scold her for interrupting, but looked straight into her eyes with a pair of highly distressed hazels.

“I didn’t even know you at that point, but I wanted nothing more than to strangle the living daylights out of whoever had done that to you.”

“You did! You full on nailed that evil hologram!”

“And then you told me about Daniel...and Steve,” he continued.

“We don’t have to go there...” she said quickly.

“But we do though! Because the thing is Sam, I feel responsible for what happened to you.”

The confusion on her face was clear as day.

“Arnold, that makes absolutely no sense, you didn’t even know me.”

“I’m so frustrated with myself that I wasn’t there to stop it all, I suppose that’s why I’m being a little overbearing.”

“So let me get this straight,” she said slowly,  
“You’re being overprotective of me, to try and make up for the men that treated me badly.”

“It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?”

“A little bit,” she replied.

There was a long pause,

He sighed,

“I’ve been a complete moron haven’t I?” he said, putting his head in his hands.

“Little bit.” she repeated.

“I knew I’d mess everything up! I knew the whole thing was too good to be true!”

“You haven’t messed everything up, Arnold,” she sighed.  
“You just need to realise that there’s nothing you can do to take away all the bad stuff that happened to me before I met you. No matter how many times you lock me up, or monitor my every move, or obsess about me twenty four seven, none of that will change what I went through..  
The past is the past,” she said taking his hand,  
“And you need to accept that.”

He looked up at her.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a very wise head on your shoulders for a twenty nine year old woman?”

“No,” she replied.  
“I’ve been called many things in my time, but ‘wise’ has never been one of them. ‘Boozer’ and ‘Midget’ seem to be the most frequently used terms.”

He placed his hand on her arm.

“I like taking care of you Sam. Loving you has given me purpose, it makes me feel like my existence is actually worth something.  
It’s only natural that I should want to protect you!”

“I know,” she said,  
“And I kinda like it too, just...don’t talk to me like I’m a kid, ok? Cos it’s actually seriously creepy.”

He nodded, and she could see by the look on his face that the message had finally got through.

She leant over and kissed him on the lips.  
“Can we go home now?”

It warmed the hologram’s light bee, hearing her refer to the dwarf as home.  
“We can, although I think it’s probably better if you rest back here.

“I feel fine now,” she assured him,  
“I wanna come and sit up with you guys in the cockpit.”

She looked thoroughly exhausted to him, but he reminded himself that she was perfectly capable of making her own decisions.

“Alright,” he said.

Taking her spot next to Kryten, Sam began admiring her figurine, marvelling at the amount of detail on it. Although she didn’t get an awfully long time to admire it, as the fallout from her seizure, coupled with the soothing hum of the craft, drew her into the land of nod fairly quickly. 

Against Kryten’s arm.

The other three turned to look when they heard the sound of the figurine hitting the floor.

“Umm sirs, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do here,” squeaked the mech, who was too scared to move incase he wound up hurting her.

“I told her she wasn’t well enough to sit up front with us,” sighed Rimmer.  
“It’s alright Kryten, I’ve got her,” he said, picking her up and sitting her down on his lap, where her head naturally fell against his shoulder. As she snuggled up to his heat, a thought occurred to the hologram.

“Kryten what was causing the low temperature down in the basement?”

“I’m not sure you’ll really want to know sir.”

“Kryten?!” 

“Well sir, there was a cavity down there, leading right out into the depths of space. If Cat and Miss Samantha had wandered up to that area of the basement, well, I’m sure you can imagine what would have happened. I very nearly got sucked out myself.”

“So,” began Lister,  
“Your girlfriends epilepsy not only saved my genitals from a hoard of psycho skutters, but also prevented her and Cat from spending too long in the basement!  
Time to loosen the reins a little bit don’t you think Rimmer?”

The hologram shot him an angry look, but Lister saw the look of quiet admiration he gave his love interest when he believed the others weren’t looking. He also saw the soft kiss pressed to the woman’s forehead as well.

Lister smirked.  
Rimmer hated being proved wrong.

“Cor she really is sparko isn’t she?” said the scouser.  
“Oh hey Kryten? What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Well, I thought after Miss Samantha’s valiant effort at saving us, albeit indirectly, we would have hamburgers!”

“That’s Sam’s favourite food is it Kryten?”

“Well technically Mr Lister sir, Miss Samantha’s favourite dinner is bacon double cheeseburger with french fries and coleslaw on the side, followed by strawberry sponge and custard!”  
Kryten beamed with pride.  
“I remembered, Mr Rimmer!”

“Very well done Kryten, what do you want? A medal, or a chest to pin it on?”

“Christ!” exclaimed Lister  
“Where does she put it all?”

“You haven’t seen her work her way through a chocolate cake Lister, it’s actually quite remarkable,” said the hologram.  
“She starts from the outside and works her way in, using a sort of Pac-Man approach, and you can guarantee that the majority of it’s been demolished by the five minute mark.”

“Smegginhell.”

As if in response to them talking about her, the woman in question began to snore very loudly, in a noise that wasn’t far off being akin to a power drill.

‘And there was me hoping the return journey would be a lot more peaceful than the outgoing one,’ thought Lister, smiling to himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the ‘Tekken’ references here. I just enjoyed writing the gaming scene so much that I couldn’t bear to take them out.
> 
> Mild references to Sam’s attack, and some bad language.

“Dave, what did you do with the ketchup?”

“It wasn’t me that last had it Sam, it was Cat.”

“You don’t even like ketchup, Cat!”

“I fancied trying something different tonight ok? What you need it for anyway? You got enough barbecue sauce there to fill the whole of space!”

“I like ketchup with my barbecue sauce, now hand it over!”

The three diners were sat round the table, tucking into a delicious hamburger meal that Kryten had expertly prepared.

All except for Cat, who was enjoying a breaded piece of haddock.

There were two large bowls in the centre of the table; one containing onion rings, and the other containing french fries.

Rimmer was sat reading one of his ‘Classic Cars’ magazines, and Kryten, clad in his pink apron, was stood overseeing the meal.

Alongside scrubbing the ship from top to bottom and working his way through mountains of ironing, watching people enjoying a meal he had served up gave the mech an incredible feeling of satisfaction

“You’re obviously feeling a lot better,” remarked Lister, noticing the amount of french fries that Sam was piling on her plate

“I am, Dave,” she confirmed.

“Just please assure me that your going to remember to take your smegging pills!” said Rimmer, tearing his attention away from his magazine momentarily. 

“Yes, I’m going to remember to take my pills!” she said, popping open a can of Orange Fanta.

“I found the medication you need down in the cargo hold, Miss.  
I’ve put it on your bedside table.”

“Thanks Kryten,” she said, taking the bun off her burger and adding some onion rings into it.

“There is a rather large supply, but we shall need to make sure that we keep an eye out for them when we are out gathering supplies”

“Failing that we can just take to trip back to Jupiter. I used to get them delivered to the house, mum and dad must have a huge stockpile of them by now.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw her lover set down his reading material, and knew full well what was coming.

“Sam,” he said, a little impatiently,  
“Do you not think it would have been a good idea to...”

“To bring them with me when we went to visit my parents Arnold, yes I do!” she said, finishing his sentence for him.  
“I forgot, ok!”

She was fully prepared for a lecture, but when he spoke again, his voice was considerably softer.

“Well, at least we know we have somewhere to go to if we get desperate.”

“Right!” said Lister, after Kryten had cleared away the dinner things and assured them that dessert was on the way.

“Who’s for a game?”

“Oh yes!” cried Sam, racing Cat and Lister to the couch.  
She and the scouser got there first, and eagerly grabbed the controllers

“Sorry Cat,” said Sam.  
“Looks like you’ll have to wait!”

He grunted and sat down in the chair.

“Well this better be a fun game to watch!”

Lister put the disc in.

“Right,” he said, as he began to scroll through the character list.

“I’ll see you later,” said Rimmer to Sam, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek.

“Love you,” she called back to him as he left the room.

“Should I be Marshall Law? Or Yoshimitsu?” said Lister. 

“Yoshimitsu looks kinda cool,” said Cat.

“Where’s Rimmer gone?” asked the scouser.

“He picked up a Build your own civil war army model thing’ or something on the derelict, he’s set it up in our room.”

“That’s him entertained for hours then.”

“Mmmhmm,” she agreed.

“Maybe I should be Jack 5?” pondered Lister, returning his attention to the game.  
“Oh cool, they’ve brought Panda back!”

Kryten performed an over exaggerated cough.

“I assume everyone’s going to come to the table for dessert?”

“Come on Dave, hurry up and pick one!”

“Alright! Alright!”

“Bud, I’m thinkin you should go with Yoshimitsu.”

“For god’s sake Dave, you’re not gonna scroll through every bloody character are you?!”

“So no one is coming to the table for desert?” questioned Kryten, beginning to get flustered.

“Monkey, if you take any longer picking a character, I think I’m gonna go and start building armies with alphabet head!”

“Paul Phoenix! Alright, he’s my man!”  
Lister eagerly hit the select button on his controller.

“Right!” said Kryten,  
“I suppose it will be dessert in front of the tv again! And there was I, trying to incorporate a little class, a little decorum into things...and what do I get?!”

His question was a rhetorical one, which was just as well, as the gamers weren’t paying the slightest bit of attention to him.  
He tore his apron off and stomped out of the room with “Strop mode” fully engaged.

The others didn’t even notice him leave.

“Your turn Sam!” said Lister.

She moved the cursor across the screen and instantly selected her character.

“Blimey that was quick!”

“Nina Williams is my favourite character! Here, chuck us a beer Dave.”

“Are you sure you should be drinking, what with your seizure and everything?”

“I’ll be fine Dave, I know my limits.”

Lister looked unsure for a moment, but leaned over and grabbed one for her anyway, while also grabbing one for himself.

They played for a solid couple of hours, while Kryten begrudgingly served them desert.

“Gotta pee!” said Sam suddenly, jumping up and heading out of the bunk room.

A thought occurred to Lister as he watched her leave, actually it had occurred to him earlier in the day, but he hadn’t yet vocalised it to anyone.

“Here Cat, do you reckon they’ve...you know?”

“What?”

“You know...done the deed?”

“I don’t wanna be thinkin about that!”

“It’s strange though isn’t it, there’s a part of my mind that really doesn’t think they have. I mean, they’ve been together for months now, what’s stopping them? It’s definitely not like Rimmer to hesitate when he’s got a prime opportunity to get his leg over!”

Cat thought for a moment.

“Maybe she can’t find a suitable bag to put over his head?”

“Haha, yeah!” joked Lister.  
“Or maybe she’s terrified that she’s gonna get eaten alive by the nostrils of doom!”

They played in silence for a bit, until Cat suddenly burst out laughing.

“Hey bud! You know how small she is? Maybe she’s afraid old goal-post head is gonna break her in two!”

“Thanks for putting an image of Rimmer’s manhood in my head Cat! It’s gonna be wave after wave of nightmares for me tonight!”

“Eww no! I mean, trip over and land on her or something!”

“Ummm sirs,”said Kryten, pausing in his act of dusting and gesturing towards the door.

The two men turned their heads round to see Sam standing in the doorway.

“Oh smeg,” said Lister.  
“Sam look, we were just j...”

“Joking about,” she replied.  
“That’s ok, I get that, it’s just friendly banter isn’t it?”

Her expression, however, was not one of someone who was in the mood for a joke.

“Look Sam, we really didn’t mean to be...”

“It’s fine Dave,” she said, although there was something vague and absent about her tone which concerned the scouser a little.

“I’m going to head off to bed.”

“Don’t you wanna play anymore?” he asked, gesturing at his controller.

She shook her head.

“Are you alright, Miss?” asked Kryten.

“I’m fine, I’m just a bit tired,” she said, before sloping off out of the room. 

“Smeg, I think we’ve really upset her,” said Lister.

Kryten looked concerned, and even Cat looked mildly uncomfortable.

“If she tells goal-post head what we were saying, he’s gonna go nuts!” said the feline.

“That’s what I’m afraid of Cat.”

“Oh don’t worry too much sirs, I’m sure Mr Rimmer will get over it. Might I ask why you are suddenly so concerned about his welfare though?”

“I don’t give a smeg about his welfare Kryten, I just don’t want my PlayStation destroyed.”

Sam was on her way to the bar. It was a decision she had made pretty damn quickly when she had heard the two of them discussing her and Rimmer’s sex life, or lack of sex life.

“They’ve noticed,” she thought,  
“They’ve put the pieces together and they’ve worked it out.”

Of course she knew full well that they would have reached that conclusion eventually. She had just hoped that her and Rimmer might have at least made headway in the bedroom department. Something she could call progress at least.  
But no progress had been made whatsoever.

She told herself that when the time was right, then it would feel right. The problem was, time was passing by, and she still hadn’t reached the point where she felt calm and confident enough to go through with it. Yes, there had been times when they had hugged and kissed, and she had felt like she really wanted to, but when it came down to suggesting it to him, she had lost her nerve and chickened out. He, of course was waiting for her consent before he would even think about suggesting anything, and so they were stuck in this never ending rut.

‘He’s not going to hurt you Sam,’ he inner muse told her.

She knew that, of course she knew that, but the last man had. The last man had hurt her to the point that no woman should ever be hurt.  
It felt as if he had stolen her body from her, and she was having one hell of a time trying to get it back.

Maybe they should just get on and do it? Her mother had always told her that thinking about doing something daunting was more often than not much worse than actually doing it.

Something had to happen though, for the salvation of their relationship.

His patience was wearing thin, she was sure of it, she knew how keen he was.  
A flood of guilt washed over her at this thought.

‘You’re hanging your poor sex-starved boyfriend out to dry.’

Even more worrying though, was the fact that she still wasn’t entirely sure what he had going on down there. There was definitely something, he had doubled over in agony when she had kicked him in that particular region, and had later on made a reference to his ‘love spuds,’ which she had taken to mean testicles, but there was still a fair amount of uncertainty about the whole thing. She’d never seen him naked, and it wasn’t something that she felt she could question him about, she was far too embarrassed.

‘Perhaps holographic sex isn’t anything like ‘living person’ sex,’ she pondered.

He had of course seen her naked. For about an hour and a half, she recalled, as she had lain chained up in that prison cell of hers, before Kryten had returned with a boiler suit.  
And yet the ridiculous thing was, she couldn’t even bring herself to get undressed in front of the man.

She loved him more than she thought it was possible to ever love anyone, and she was definitely attracted to him, there was no question about that.  
But the sex thing was just one giant mess.

Well not any longer, she was done with having Steve dictate what she could and couldn’t do with her life.  
It was time to toughen up and push that asshole who had attacked her out of her mind and her body for good.

And she could do it, she knew she could. She just needed a little pick me up, something to steady her nerves. She’d pop into the bar and have a drink or two before she headed up to their bedroom. 

Everything would be fine.

Lister was the only occupant of the bunk room when she returned there an hour or so later.

The Scouser was stretched out on the length of the couch, snoozing lightly.

“Dave” she yelled from the doorway.

“What the smeg!” cried Lister, who shot up from the couch like he’d just been galvanised.

“Dave, I need to speak to you!”

“Sam you don’t need to shout from the doorway, come in!”

She came in and slumped down on the couch next to him, staggering as she went.

“Sam, how much have you had to drink?”

“Not too much,” she slurred.

“Somehow, I don’’t believe you,” he said, grasping her shoulders gently to try and keep her from keeling over where she sat.

“Sssshhh Dave, it’s fine, none of that matters. I’ve come to ask you a very very very important question.”

“Sam, what the hell’s goin on? You’re absolutely steaming?”

“You’ve known Arnold a long time, haven’t you?”

“I have,” he confirmed, getting up to get her a glass of water from the sink.

“So you know everything about him, right?”

“More or less,” said Lister, handing the glass to her and sitting back down beside her.

“You know, Rimmer’s not gonna be happy that you’ve got yourself into this state?” he warned her.

“Oh don’t you worry about that Dave...he’s gonna love what I’ve got in store for him! I’m gonna give him the best night of his life!”

Lister cottoned on to her meaning.

“I’m not really sure you’re gonna be up for that, Sam. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”  
He moved to help her up, but she pushed him away.

“I can’t go up there yet Dave, I’m not properly prepared.”

“What?”

“I don’t have all the facts.”

Lister screwed his face up.

“Sam, you are not making any sense whatsoever.”

“There’s something I really need to know, Dave.”

“Well go on then, what is it?” asked Lister, taking a swig from the can of lager that he had opened earlier in the evening.

“Does Arnold have a penis?”

Lister spat out the majority of his gulp all down his front.

“Sam! Why on earth would you ask me that?!”

“This is serious Dave! I need to know!”

“Of course he’s got a smeggin penis!”

“What like, a proper one?”

“Sam, hologram’s are an exact replica of a living person. How could you not know that? You’ve got tons of them on Jupiter!”

“Yes but they don’t all walk round with their dicks hanging out, Dave! So I just wanted to double check.”

“Do you not think this is a conversation you should be having with Rimmer?”

“I was worried that he would get embarrassed.”

So there was the confirmation. They hadn’t had sex. In fact, from where Lister was sitting, it was starting to sound like they hadn’t done anything at all.

“So...you and Rimmer have been sharing a bed these past months, and...you haven’t done anything?”

Her face flushed crimson.

“Sam, are things ok between you and Rimmer?”

She felt her bottom lip begin to tremble, and she came so close to telling him that things weren’t ok, that things were actually a complete disaster when it came to their sex life.  
His warm, dark chocolate coloured eyes seemed so kind, so comforting.  
She threw her arms around his neck.

“You’re such a good friend, Dave.”

They finished hugging, and Sam got up to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” he enquired.

“I’m heading off to bed.”

“You sure you don’t wanna kip here for a bit? Cos I really don’t think Rimmer’s gonna be ok with you being in this state.”

“It’ll be fine,” she said, and disappeared off down the corridor.

Lister wasn’t convinced though, he wasn’t convinced at all. He decided to take a trip up to the captains quarters, to make sure that she had actually returned there.

Upon reaching the room, it was just as he had suspected. There was no sign of the petite blonde.

The hologram was utterly fixated with the task in hand, which involved painting a small figure. There were several other figures on the table beside him, which had already been painted.  
He seemed to be in a jovial mood.

“Well Listy, I think I’ve more than outdone myself! Look at the craftsmanship here! It’s exemplary!”

“Yeah it’s great, man.”

“Great!? It’s a little more than just great, Lister. Look at the detail I’ve painted on this one,” he said showing off the little soldier.  
“You know, I’ve often wondered if I couldn’t made a career out of this.”

“What, painting tiny soldiers?”

“It’s not just painting Lister! It’s restoration! It’s fine attention to detail!”

“Yeah whatever man, look, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to draw your attention off somewhere else.”

“Why, what is it?” said Rimmer, setting the miniature man back down on the table and turning round to face the other man.

“Please tell me Sam’s in the bathroom.”

“No, I thought she was with you?”

“Oh smeg.”

“What is it Lister?!”

“I think she might be in the bar.”

“The bar?”  
“What would she be doing down there?”

“Drinking,” said Lister awkwardly.

“Drinking?!”

The scouser nodded.

“She came into the bunkroom, almost paralytic, and asked me a very strange question.”

Rimmer shot up from the table in a hurry and made to leave the room, but stopped just before he did and turned back round.

“What did she ask you?”

Lister coughed.

“She wanted to know if you had a penis”

“She what!?”

The hologram pinched the bridge of his nose.  
“She’s really trying my patience today.”

“Listen Rimmer, I’ve been in a fair few relationships, if you ever want any...?”

“Do not even think about giving me advice regarding Sam!” the other man said sternly, pointing his finger at the scouser.  
“You haven’t got the first idea what she’s been through!”

“Rimmer...I”

Lister never got to finish his sentence, as Rimmer was long gone.

“What the hell are you playing at!?” snapped the hologram when he discovered his love interest down at the bar, swigging wine directly from a bottle.

“Oh hey sexy,” she slurred.

“How much have you had to drink!?” he asked, snatching the bottle from her.

“Not too much....,” she replied.  
“Just enough to chill me out...”

“Sam!” he said, bracing his hands on the table and getting right up into her face.  
“You have suffered a massive seizure today! How can you possibly think that getting drunk is an acceptable thing to do?!”

But Sam wasn’t really registering what he was saying, her attention was currently being held by the facial features of the man in front of her.

“My god I love your eyes,” she said.

“What!?”

“You know I’ve never really found brown eyes particularly sexy...but yours a different...they’re kind of like swirly pools of cocoa butter...”

“Sam, why did you do this?!” he demanded.

His face still hadn’t moved from its close proximity with hers, and she decided now would be a pretty good time to kick things off. He was well within kissing range, and kissing was something she had no issues with whatsoever, and it was an integral part of foreplay, everybody knew that.

She caught his warm lips in hers, but he pulled away instantly.

“What are you doing?!”

“Helping myself to some of that wonderful tongue is what I’m doing,” she said, lunging forward in an attempt to reach his lips again, but he widened the distance between them.

“Right! You need to go to bed, now!” he grabbed her hand, and began to drag her out of the room, at which point she did something that he really hadn’t expected her to do.  
She kicked him the shin.

“I don’t want to go to fucking bed!”

He dropped her hand, sat down on the nearest chair, and began to rub his injured leg. 

“You keep telling me that you don’t want me to treat you like a child! So why do you keep behaving like one?! I don’t know what Im supposed to do with you Sam, I really don’t!

A howl suddenly erupted from the woman across the room, and the tears then began to pour down her cheeks.

“Oh please don’t cry,” he said, “You know I hate it when you cry.”

The sobs just got louder rather than quieter, and he was over and by her side in an instant, kissing her all over her face.

“Please don’t cry...please don’t cry...I’m sorry I got cross...”

“I’m sorry I’m so high maintenance,” she said between sobs,  
“I don’t know why you haven’t just given up on me! Why you haven’t just chucked me off the ship!”

“Sam,” he said softly, wiping her tears away with his thumbs.  
“I’m not ever going to give up on you! I love you! But how can I help you if you don’t tell me what the problem is?”

A few soft sobs escaped her, but she managed to gather herself and say,  
“I want to have sex with you, but I’m scared I won’t be able to go through with it.”

Realisation flooded his handsome features.

“So that’s why you’ve gone and got yourself completely legless?”

She nodded timidly and then, surprising him for the second time that evening, got up from the table and took his hand in hers.

“Sam, what are you doing?” he questioned uncertainly, although he did allow himself to be pulled up from his seating position.

She began running her fingers up and down his chest.

“We just need to get ourselves into the right frame of mind,” she said.

“The right frame of mind for what?”

“For sex!”

“I really don’t think now is an appropriate time for that, do you?” he said, removing her hands from his chest.

“Shhh, it’ll be fine,” she said, placing a finger to his lips.  
“We just need to light some candles or something, make it all romantic! Set the mood...make it...”

She never finished her sentence, for at that moment her stomach lurched, and she threw up the entirety of Kryten’s hamburger special and sponge pudding all over the chest of the man in front of her.

“Well I don’t know about you, but I’d say that’s set the mood rather spectacularly,” said Rimmer, wrinkling up his nose, and switching to a clean uniform.

“I don’t feel well,” she moaned.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said gathering her up in his arms.

“It’s bedtime for you.”

Sam woke up the following morning with the hangover from hell. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d drunk so much.

Her head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and her mouth felt like it was full of sawdust.

She heard a voice say,

“Here, drink this,” and she was passed a glass of water.

In her sleepy state, she couldn’t quite make sense of the voice. 

‘Arnold doesn’t have a weird accent like that...he also doesn’t smell like leather.’

As she opened her eyes, Lister came into view.  
He was perched on the edge of the bed.

“Dave?” she croaked.

“Shh, drink your water,” he said soothingly.  
“And take a couple of these as well.”  
He handed her some pills.

“Why are you here?” she asked, and then the events of the night before slowly came trickling into her sleep addled brain.  
“He’s angry with me isn’t he? 

“Well he can’t be that angry with you,” replied the scouser.  
“He’s been sitting up with you all night to make sure you were ok, he ran out of charge this morning so he asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“Thanks Dave,” she replied, swallowing the pills.  
“My head feels like it’s gonna explode.”

“Haha yeah, you don’t need to tell me about hangovers.”

“Dave, did I say anything weird to you last night?”

Lister briefly considered lying to her to spare her feelings, but he was fairly certain that Rimmer would confront her about the topic anyway.

“You did question me about Rimmer’s manhood...”

“Oh fuck,” she replied, covering her face with her hand.  
“Does he know?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

“Urgh!”  
She lay back down and threw the pillow over her face.  
“I can’t face him, I’ve got to go somewhere, I’ve got to go somewhere now!”

“Sam I don’t think that’s a good idea!”

She stumbled out of bed and almost tripped over Lister’s feet in her effort to get out the door. As soon as she got to the doorway though, she found herself careering into a very warm, and very solid, dark blue wall.

“I thought we were done with the whole ‘You running away from me’ thing,” said the man in the doorway.

She looked up at him,

“I wasn’t running away Arnold, I was just going to the toilet.”

“So our en-suite isn’t good enough for you anymore then?” 

“Dave was in there,” she replied slowly.

“Eh, don’t drag me into all this!” cried Lister.

“So, do you genuinely need to go to the toilet, or are you just going to hide in there until I give up and leave?” 

She could hear the bitterness in his voice, which took her right back to that day. The day he had spent being so nice to her, and she had thrown it back in his face every step of the way.  
She remembered clearly how she had hidden in the toilets, absolutely petrified of him.

She had had her reasons, and she knew he understood that, but it had still hurt him a lot.

“I’m not scared Arnold...I’m fucking embarrassed.”

She looked down at her feet.

She reasoned that her lover must have given some visual cue to the scouser because she heard him get up from the bed and say,

“Well, I’ll catch you guys later then.”

Sam watched him leave before collapsing back onto the bed.  
The hologram sat down beside her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, after a while.

“Talk about what?” she groaned.  
“About the fact that I got stinking drunk? The fact that I discussed your man parts with Dave? The fact that I kicked you? Or the fact that I puked on you!?”

“I think it would be a good time to start talking about sex, don’t you?”

“Sex?” she replied weakly.  
“Arnold, we really don’t need to talk about...”

“I know your scared,” he said softly,  
“It’s just, I really don’t think that the both of us dancing round the issue is doing any good for our relationship whatsoever.”

“I can’t talk about this now Arnold, I don’t feel well...”

“This problem isn’t going to go away unless we do talk about it Sam,” he said, kindly but firmly.

“And we will,” she assured him,  
“We will, please just let me have a bit more sleep.”

“Alright,” he said gently, tucking her in.  
“I’ll wake you up in a bit.”

He left and the panic circuits began to fire up in Sam’s brain. There was no avoiding it now, they were going to have to discuss it, and discussing it was the last thing she wanted to do. She was petrified that discussing it would force her to remember that man, to remember the horrible things he did to her. She didn’t want to dissect that memory, she didn’t want to pull it apart and analyse it from every which way, she wanted to run away and hide from it.  
Surely if they just got on and did it, it would all turn out to be ok? 

‘Getting on and doing it didn’t work out terribly well last night though did it Sam?’

The man of her dreams woke her up around lunchtime. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, setting a cup of tea down on the bedside table.

“My head’s a mess.”

“Well you did drink rather a lot of alcohol,” he admonished.

“I’m not talking about the hangover, Arnold. I’m talking about the fact that the prospect of having sex absolutely terrifies me.

“Maybe you just need a bit more time,” he suggested.

“It’s been months Arnold! It’s been bloody months! They all know about it too! They’ve been talking about it behind our backs!”

She could see a twitch in his facial expression that suggested he was just as embarrassed about the whole thing as she was, but didn’t want to openly convey this to her.

“I don’t give a smeg what they talk about, Sam! I want you to have sex with me because you want to do it, not because you feel like you’ve been pressured into doing it.”

“Yeah well, I’m not sure if I will ever feel like it, and I know you’re getting impatient by the way.”

“I am not getting impatient!”

“You are! I can see it in your eyes!”

There was silence between them for a moment. 

“Perhaps we should start off small.” he suggested.  
“I mean, maybe you could get undressed in front of me, I mean that would be a good place to start, wouldn’t it? I have already seen you naked after all.”

Rimmer let his mind wander momentarily back onto the memory of her naked body. He had daydreamed about it more or less constantly ever since he had first laid eyes on it in the factory, and he could remember every detail about it, as if it were burned into his artificial brain.  
The subtle curve of her hips and the snow white hue of her skin. The soft swell of her breasts, the dusky pink colour of her nipples, and the delicate pattern of moles that ran down her inner thigh.

“So you ARE getting impatient?” he heard her say.

“I’m not!” he protested, although the truth was, the anticipation was driving him a little crazy. This was the last thing he wanted her to know though.

The truth was, of course, was that he fancied the smegging pants off her, and was desperate to be sexually intimate with her, desperate to please her. 

He’d lost count of the number of times they’d got into some serious kissing, and he’d had to remove himself from her embrace and disappear off somewhere to pleasure himself, making up some ridiculous excuse about installing updates or something of that nature.  
He wasn’t entirely sure why, but behaving in this manner made him feel guilty, almost as if he were being unfaithful to her, as ridiculous as that seemed. 

His behaviour was that of a horny adolescent who had stacks of dirty magazines hidden under his bed. It was certainly not the correct conduct of a fifty-nine year old man, one who should be more than fully matured by now.

She drove him wild with desire, so much so that when the time did eventually come around, he believed that he would over and done with five minutes into the process.  
The memory of Lister’s fetid laundry piles dumped all over the bunk room, could very likely turn out to be his salvation on that front.

“Sam,” he said  
“You have to remember that you’ve been through a really traumatic experience, and that’s something that’s going to take some time to get over.”

“I know, I just wish we were making some kind of progress.”

“Well, you being assured of the fact that I have a penis is progress if you ask me.”

She put a hand over her eyes.

“I am so sorry about that...”

“Just out of interest, what exactly did you think I had going on down there?”

“I’m not really sure if I’m honest, so does it...” she began.

“Yes, it functions just like a normal one,” he said, looking at her as if she had just asked the most ridiculous question in the universe.

“Well, I’ve never seen you naked, so how am I supposed to know?”

“Yes, but I told you about my time as Ace? What did you think I was doing with those women? Playing twister?!”

“I don’t know Arnold,” she sighed,  
“I’ve never dated a hologram before...and it’s not like I’ve seen you naked is it?”

Rimmer shook his head.

He had indeed never displayed his naked form to her, and there were reasons for that.  
As a hologram, he didn’t need to become naked to change his outfits, and he also didn’t need to shower.  
So the only way it would happen, would be for him to full on come out and ask her if she would like to see him naked.

He was worried that that might come across as too aggressive though, as if he were piling too much pressure on to her. Plus, his software wasn’t capable of executing a gradual undressing.  
It was all or nothing, so it wasn’t as if he could even carry out the process slowly.

“You know,” he ventured,  
“I think undressing in front of me is a really good place to start. I mean, it’s not as if I haven’t already seen you naked.”

“I know...it’s just...”

“I’m not going to do anything to you,” he said gently.

“I know,” she nodded softly,  
“I know.”

He saw the look on her face, and was convinced that she was going to to lose nerve, so it pleased him more than anything when she stood up and began to remove her pyjama top.

Sam took a deep breath, and removed the item completely, fighting a major urge to fold her arms over her breasts.

‘He’s seen it all before, Sam,’ she reminded herself.

She successfully removed the bottoms as well, but found that she was completely unable to look at him, and so kept her gaze fixed on the floor.

The whole thing was utterly ludicrous, she had been fully clothed when she had been attacked. And yet, undressing in front of a man, like this, was shooting her vulnerability levels off the scale.

“Please look at me,” she heard him say.

Reluctantly, she brought her gaze up to meet his, and found him smiling at her.

It was one of her favourite ones, the ones that always seemed to make bad or scary situations that little bit better.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.  
Something about the tone of his voice, the warmth and sincerity of it, soothed her jangled nerves, and she relaxed considerably.

But where was this heading?

“What do you want me to do now?” she asked uncertainly.

“I want you to get dressed and go and eat the lunch Kryten’s prepared for you,” he said simply.

“So you don’t want to...?”

“Baby steps, Sam,” he reminded her.

She smiled and nodded.

Rimmer considered as he watched her get dressed.

That had definitely been a step in the right direction. If she had been brave enough to do that, maybe it wouldn’t be long before she was brave enough to do other stuff.  
He hoped that day would come soon, but he knew he couldn’t push her.  
Attempting anything akin to pushing would land them both right back at square one.

‘She’ll get there, Rimmer,’ he said to himself.

The object of his affection stopped before she left the room.

“Me and Dave are gonna play Guitar Hero after lunch, you don’t mind do you?”

“Of course not,” he replied genuinely.

“I love you,” she said sincerely, crossing over to him and kissing him passionately on the lips.  
“Thank you for being so patient with me.”

“I love you too,” he said as he watched her leave, flicking her beautiful blonde hair out from where it had got caught under her fluffy jumper.

She was stunning, and she was all his.

And so even with their current lack of sex life,  
Arnold J Rimmer still felt like the luckiest man in the universe.

Fin


End file.
